Re: POTM [was Re: Evolution's problems]
- From: Greg G <gdguarino@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 01 Jan 2006 07:49:54 GMT
It's a little long , but would otherwise make an excellent sticker to
cover over the previous crop of of stickers affixed to those biology
textbooks.
Greg Guarino
On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 14:55:39 -0500, "Frank F. Smith" <me@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
>On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 14:00:53 -0500, Raymond Griffith
><tiffirgrReverse@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>I was going to snip most of the content, but cannot bring myself to
>erase your words, even quoted. Marvelous exposition.
>
>POTM-worthy, in my opinion.
>
>Thank you,
>Frank
>
>>
>>
>>
>>On 12/29/05 10:13 PM, in article
>>qfqdneA567hYOCnenZ2dnUVZ_smdnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxx, "Logos" <asdfd@xxxxxxx>
>>wrote:
>>
>>> Among the many problems with evolution are the questions it is unable to
>>> answer.
>>
>>I would be careful with this line of reasoning. It is essentially a "you
>>don't know everything so you don't know anything" position. For example, one
>>could assert
>>
>>"Among the many problems with the theory of Gravity are the questions it is
>>unable to answer."
>>
>>If you were to assert that, because the current theory of Gravity is
>>incomplete or inaccurate in some places that Gravity does not exist, then
>>you would be a fool.
>>
>></Tongue-in-cheek humor here> And since there *are* questions that the
>>Theory of Gravity cannot answer, I invite you to show your equal disdain for
>>it by walking off the top of a tall building. After all, by your reasoning,
>>gravity must not exist, right? </End TIC>
>>
>>But seriously, you have a much worse problem than with the Theory of
>>Evolution. For by your own reasoning which I reproduce exactly for your
>>benefit, your own faith is in jeopardy. For "Among the many problems with
>>Christianity are the questions it is unable to answer."
>>
>>And a whole list of questions could -- and certainly would -- emerge! The
>>list would be endless, including the exact nature of the kenosis, the
>>conflicts between free will and predestination, etc. There have been wars
>>build on conflicts of theology concerning questions the Bible has no
>>complete answers for.
>>
>>In fact, the problem of unanswered questions is much more of a difficulty
>>with Christianity than it is with Science. After all, Christianity is a
>>"Revealed Religion". Since the source of that Revelation is supposedly God
>>Himself, then leaving us with essential and important questions unanswered
>>is a potential argument against the reality of your Faith and mine.
>>Certainly, by your reasoning, Christianity should possess *all* of the
>>answers, right?
>>
>>Yet we do not. And one of the largest questions challenging the reality of
>>your Faith is how you can remain so decidedly smug in your ignorance and
>>call it knowledge. That is a direct violation of the principles of faith
>>found in the Holy Scriptures, yet you ignore those principles daily in your
>>crusade against Evolution.
>>
>>Unanswered questions are not a problem with Science. We explain things the
>>best we can with the evidence at hand. When more knowledge or better
>>explanations come into view, they tend to supplement and change our
>>explanations.
>>
>>Why, a cursory reading of any *popular* science journal has new discoveries
>>in almost every issue, with a note on how the discovery addresses a
>>particular question or explanation in science. And very often, the assertion
>>is made that if the evidence is confirmed, it will require a change in a
>>certain part of the current theory.
>>
>>And Science is happy, even eager, to accommodate! After all, the goal of
>>science is to progress from less knowledge to more knowledge, from less
>>understanding to more understanding. We already know that we don't know
>>everything -- unlike certain people who (on religious grounds) think they
>>have all knowledge and wisdom and power and might.
>>
>>>
>>> Here they are, in order of importance:
>>>
>>> 1. How can life come from non-life?
>>
>>You have for the umptieth time confused abiogenesis with evolution. Let me
>>try to put it as plainly as I possibly can.
>>
>>"Life from non-life" is not a part of the Theory of Evolution. Abiogenesis
>>is a separate field, still in its infancy, and will have unanswered
>>questions for many, many years. It is principally a chemical exploration of
>>conditions in the distant past -- and given developments in planetary
>>cosmology recently, I suspect there will have to be some changes in some of
>>their models of the early earth.
>>
>>"Life from life, with modifications" describes the Theory of Evolution.
>>After all, you are different from your parents, and your parents were
>>different from their parents, ad-infinitum. The changes from one generation
>>to the next were subtle. Yet they were there. The ToE describes the changes
>>in the characteristics of populations from one generation to the next.
>>
>>You are on notice. You have been told the difference between evolution and
>>abiogenesis many times. Now pay attention. We will expect you to know the
>>difference from now on and to use the terminology correctly.
>>
>>Still, to answer your question a bit more completely, life as we know it
>>follows the laws of chemistry even as non-life follows the laws of
>>chemistry. These laws are rather complex, and while the interactions of
>>elements and molecules are somewhat random, the chemical results are not at
>>all random.
>>
>>That random interactions can produce terribly complex results can be found
>>in some toxic waste dumps. In certain dumps, chemicals have combined into
>>significantly more complex forms than the chemicals that were originally
>>dumped there. What formed was a product of chemistry. It depended upon the
>>chemicals present (both kind and quantity) and the heat energy available.
>>But the laws of chemistry guaranteed the result.
>>
>>Now think. You believe that God created man from a clay mold that He
>>breathed life into. How did that breath create our physical systems from
>>undifferentiated clay? That is an unanswered question of Christianity, by
>>the way. But there is life from non-life.
>>
>>For that matter, from where did God come? Your answer, of course, is that He
>>always existed. And yet, if life must come from somewhere, then so must have
>>He come from somewhere! Your own reasoning, sir -- your own reasoning.
>>
>>And might not God, from Whom are all things, have been able to write the
>>laws of chemistry in such a way as to guarantee that "life" would emerge? Is
>>not God omnipotent? If He is, then He would have that ability to create such
>>laws.
>>
>>There is no difficulty between faith in God and the Theory of Evolution, or
>>between faith in God and abiogenesis for that matter.
>>
>>> 2. How could the Cambrian Explosion happen?
>>
>>This is a question? The fact is that what we call the "Cambrian Explosion"
>>did happen!
>>
>>There is a certain geologic strata we call "Precambrian" in which no life
>>remnants are found (or only the least complex). In the Cambrian strata --
>>which covers about a 50 million period.
>>
>>And in fact, this is not a single strata or time period itself with
>>undifferentiated mixed-up forms. There are seven different subdivisions of
>>the period! I commend to you this site for study, should you decide to do
>>some:
>>
>>http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/cambrian/camb.html
>>
>>But the fact is that some of the characteristics of life are reproduction,
>>adaptation, and a struggle to survive. And in the early earth, not every
>>environmental niche had been inhabited. There was plenty to be exploited.
>>And life gravitated to those niches where it could survive, and succeeding
>>generations became better adapted to those niches. After all, the better the
>>organism fits with its environment, the more likely it is to survive and
>>reproduce!
>>
>>So there were environmental pressures toward fairly rapid evolutionary
>>changes.
>>
>>And yes, we don't know all the answers. But that doesn't matter. We know
>>many things, and as time and investigation progresses we shall know more.
>>
>>Does this frighten you? Man, learning on his own without the aid of a holy
>>book? Finding answers to questions in the world around him? Why should it?
>>If God created man with a brain, then is it a sin to use it? I should think
>>not!
>>
>>> 3. How does evolution disprove ID?
>>
>>Evolution does not disprove ID. ID is a weasel-word theology for those who
>>contend that we have reached the limits of our knowledge and must confine
>>all the rest of our unanswered questions to the Unknown "God did it"
>>explanation.
>>
>>In point of fact, Michael Behe has admitted to belief in evolution,
>>including the common ancestry of man and ape! His beef is that God is left
>>out of science (since science cannot investigate the supernatural), and so
>>he wants to redefine science.
>>
>>His problem, I suspect, is largely like your own. He perceives troubles in
>>the world with "evolutionary philosophy", not realizing that there are many
>>other troubles in the world that have nothing to do with this imaginary
>>construct. His objections to the ToE are not scientific, but theological.
>>
>>The Dover case amply proved that ID is nothing but a theological attempt to
>>put religion back into the public schools. The goals of the Discovery
>>Institute and others like them are to reform society and government into a
>>more theocratic arrangement, intolerant of non-Christians or Christians who
>>do not agree with them, and imposing their concept of "morality" upon the
>>population.
>>
>>However, shouldn't the question be, "How does ID disprove Evolution"? It
>>doesn't, of course. And despite objections, evolution still happens.
>>
>>If God's hand is behind evolution (and I have no problem thinking that it
>>might be so), there is no evidence of it. After all, if God can cause the
>>course of events to happen so that man exercising his "free will" can still
>>do exactly the thing God wants to be done, then God can similarly hide here.
>>
>>In any case, Science by definition cannot investigate the supernatural.
>>There may be things science can never explain, and it accepts that
>>limitation. But the Kansas school board notwithstanding, Science
>>investigates natural phenomena, natural causes, natural effects. The
>>supernatural is not in view.
>>
>>> 4. How can a cynodont evolve into a therapsid? A synapsid?
>>
>>Actually, if you were to do your research, you would find that cynodonts
>>*are* therapsids. A derived branch of them, to be sure, but still from that
>>line. The therapsids are part of the synapsid group.
>>
>>So you have it backwards. Not that we are surprised. After all, this
>>question was probably culled from some creationist web site, and maybe you
>>thought maybe the terms would be as confusing to others as they are to you?
>>
>>The following are a list of websites where you can get more information on
>>this technical question.
>>
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synapsid
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therapsid
>>http://tolweb.org/tree?group=Synapsida
>>http://tolweb.org/tree?group=Therapsida&contgroup=Synapsida
>>http://www.isgs.uiuc.edu/faq/fossils/pdq252.html
>>http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/2437/therapsd.htm
>>
>>But your *real* question here is "How can macroevolution happen, where
>>species with certain traits are ancestral to species with different traits?"
>>
>>The answer, simply, is "descent with modification." The genetic code is
>>flexible. It can change. It has changed! And given time (there has been
>>plenty of it), the changes have accumulated.
>>
>>> 5. How can evolution disprove the existence of G_d? Of Jesus Christ?
>>
>>It can't. It doesn't It doesn't even try. Evolution simply answers questions
>>about how things work. It says nothing about God, neither affirming nor
>>denying Him.
>>
>>And that is as it should be. For petty man to think he can "prove" the
>>existence of God or "disprove" His existence is ridiculous. He is beyond all
>>such proofs. The only thing that can be disproved is our own limited
>>"God-in-the-box" theology in which we assume our descriptions of God are
>>necessary and sufficient.
>>
>>> 6. How can Social Darwinism be justified on moral grounds in light of Nazism
>>> and racism?
>>
>>As you should know (and doubtless do know, but what do you care?), "Social
>>Darwinism" is not an accepted sociological theory any more. It was popular
>>up until the Second World War, but it really had nothing to do with racism
>>or Nazism.
>>
>>Racism has been around a long time. I have read sermons by prominent
>>pre-Darwin theologians who justified racism and slavery on the basis of the
>>Bible. I have read sermons on social order by pre-Darwin theologians who
>>justified social inequality on the basis of the Bible.
>>
>>It seems that Social Darwinism and certain Christian doctrines had a lot in
>>common at certain times!
>>
>>But see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism for more information.
>>
>>The fact is that man will reach for what is handy to justify what they are
>>doing. You do the same thing. I am quite convinced that you are aware of the
>>truth in certain areas, but you ignore it because it doesn't fit your
>>theology. And you wind up blaming God for your bad behavior.
>>
>>"Evolutionists", by the way, do not endorse "Social Darwinism". And just
>>because "Nature" behaves a certain way does not mean that we want it that
>>way. So Scientists work with natural phenomena to frustrate nature! We do
>>that with vaccines, medical treatments, improvements in technology and
>>infrastructure. Life for us does not need to be cruel and brutish. We can
>>rise above our circumstances -- and we attempt to do so.
>>
>>However, I find it interesting that Fundamentalism is in many ways a
>>repackaging of "Social Darwinism". After all, Fundamentalism is not
>>concerned with addressing inequalities, but with preserving inequalities! It
>>is not concerned with the rights of the masses, but with preserving power
>>with the wealthy or the "right". It believes that the Strong should rule
>>over the Weak.
>>
>>I beg you to open your eyes. Read. Study. Understand. All of your questions
>>above have been answered many times over. You still ask the same ones! You
>>seem to think that nothing can ever answer your questions, so you refuse to
>>recognize where they have been!
>>
>>In that way, you are as thoroughly blind to the truth as you imagine your
>>adversaries to be.
>>
>>Yet there need be no conflict between Faith and Science. And the more I
>>learn about both, the less real conflict I find. I am glad to be a
>>Christian. I am grateful I am no longer a Fundamentalist.
>>
>>Regards,
>>
>>Raymond E. Griffith
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